Every time Daniel Huntsman specifies a color for a screw on a
hinge, he knows there's a good chance it will change. If
Huntsman Architectural Group buys a new computer to help create
office designs, the CEO knows it will soon be rendered obsolete by
a new and improved model. And whenever a new market develops for
the 19-year-old company, as it recently has with the growing demand
to design spaces for Bay area Internet start-ups, Huntsman knows it
will eventually be replaced by a new market requiring new
skills.

The process of change is exhausting and may be ultimately
destructive if left unchecked, according to Huntsman. "I get
worn out by it," says the 50-year-old, whose San Francisco
firm employs 55 people. "Change is good, but too much of it
wears things out. And change for the sake of change isn't
always good."

Numerous business executives agree with Huntsman that change
must be limited sometimes, instead of uncritically embraced, if
it's to be managed effectively. The Federal Reserve Bank, 3M
and Wal-Mart are a few large, successful organizations that have
been singled out as being less than enthusiastic about sweeping
change. The Fed, as part of its Y2K risk control effort, actually
proscribed change at the end of last year and the beginning of this
year. By limiting changes, it provided a stable internal processing
environment-entering 2000 and minimized the changes its customers
would have to make to applications that interface with the
Fed's software.

Limiting change may well be an idea whose time has come. Change
has been presented lately as an absolute good, something to be
actively encouraged for its own intrinsic worth. But the pursuit of
pointless new initiatives wastes corporate resources, warns Deborah
J. Barrett, Ph.D., instructor and director of MBA Communications at
Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Management in
Houston.

"Unfortunately, businesses have gotten caught up in change
for change's sake," says Barrett. "They think
changing will keep them out in front of the competition. But
organizations need some stability. The idea of change for
change's sake isn't a good approach to managing a
business."

Mark Henricks is an Austin, Texas, writer who specializes in
business topics and has written for Entrepreneur for 10
years.

A Developing Phenomenon

People have been concerned about change throughout the ages.
Four centuries ago, Sir Walter Raleigh warned, "There is
nothing exempt from the peril of mutation." In the early 20th
century, management innovators like Frederick W. Taylor studied the
effects of changes in compensation schemes on worker productivity.
And in 1970, author Alvin Toffler made change a popular issue in
his book Future Shock.

"The key guy was Alvin Toffler," says Jerome Katz, a
professor of management at Saint Louis University. "He was the
first one saying the pace of change was accelerating and could get
too fast for people."

Future Shock was a bestseller in its first year. Since that
time, however, attitudes toward change have, well, changed.
That's notably true in business. And today the concept that
change can be beneficial has been distorted to the point that
it's embraced uncritically by the average executive, explains
Katz. "Change is now a generic good," he says. "If
you say you're not in favor of change, people look at you
funny."

Love of change is, to some extent, a particularly American
passion. "In many parts of the world, change is looked upon
skeptically," Katz says. China, for instance, is both a hotbed
of entrepreneurship and a highly traditional society
simultaneously, he notes. Other societies make that work.

Americans, especially entrepreneurs, embrace change because it
creates opportunities for new approaches that can spawn new
enterprises. In some industries, an obvious one being technology,
product evolution is so rapid that finding some way to endure a
punishing rate of change is vital, notes Barrett.

But no matter where you are, what industry you operate in or how
large or small your business is, change has two constant features.
"Change is a classic double-edged sword," says Katz.
"It's a stress and a benefit. And when the stress gets to
be too great for the benefit, you need to stop."

Know Your Limits

The first step in effectively limiting change is to know when
you're experiencing too much. It's impossible to stay in
business without changing at all, so how do you know when
you're changing too much? There are several signs of excessive
change.

The most important one comes from employees. Any time they
don't seem to know the company's objective, suspect that
change has outpaced the human ability to adjust. "When
there's a feeling among employees that there's no core
direction or principles from which they can operate, that's a
real danger sign," Barrett says.

Of course, it's not always easy to discern employees'
inner states. But you can look at objectively measurable traits
such as trends in absenteeism, employee turnover and error rates to
help reveal a work force overstressed by change. In a small
business, you may notice employees taking longer lunches or
spending more time on personal phone calls, says Katz.
"You're seeing overwhelmed people who are trying to give
themselves some space," he says.

When employees need space, you can either give it to them the
way you want them to have it, or they will make it for themselves,
Katz notes. The most basic way to guide change-stressed employees
toward effective management of stress is to declare a hiatus on
change as the Fed did. "Slow down," advises Katz.
"Let things stand for a while. Give everyone a chance to catch
their breath."

It may be a good idea to provide employees with more training,
which will allow a breather while straightening the learning curve.
The discomfort and pressure of learning a new, required skill is a
basic cause of change-related stress. "When you change
something," Katz notes, "all those people who were
competent at something a week ago are now bad at it. So they
don't feel good about themselves."

If taking a break is not an option, you can attempt to alter
everyone's perspective on change. For instance, if employees
are feeling crushed by pressure to master new skills, officially
proclaim that the company is in a learning mode. Doing so will
reduce some of the pressure to perform perfectly in an unfamiliar
environment. "Being a student gives people permission to make
mistakes," Katz observes.

If you opt for a break, it doesn't have to be a long one.
Huntsman believes even a very small step back from the hurly-burly
pace of e-mail- and fax-driven business communications can help.
"One of the ways we try to manage change," he says,
"is to just let somebody sit down and think about something
for five minutes."

Pushing Moderation

No one can escape change completely, and it would probably be
fatal for any entrepreneur to try. The trick is in realizing when
additional change will really improve opportunity and when it will
damage a company by overstressing it.

Huntsman says it's all in knowing what your company is truly
good at, and distinguishing between that core concern and the
details of how it performs its work. "You can change the way
you do things," he observes, "but you can't change
who you are."